Tasslehoff's Discovery
by RobinKent
Summary: Tasslehoff Burrfoot accidentally embark's on a new adventure. Hopefully cute romance of Tasslehoff and Kronin Thistleknot.


A short, lean young man strolled through the clearing in the woods just outside of Solace. As he enjoyed the Spring warmth, his bright blue skin-tight leggings rippled as his slender legs carried him prancingly across the meadow. His short tunic descended to the top of his narrow and firm thighs and ended at the neck just below a face that was at once young and mature. He had amazingly youthful features, with smooth skin, perky pointed ears, and a thick head of hair gathered at a playful topknot, with his brown locks cascading behind him to his shoulders. But the eyes showed a playful maturity that had decided life was too much fun to take seriously, except for love of friends and adventure. Throwing caution to the winds, as is the nature of his people, he finds a patch of clover in a late morning sunbeam and pulls his tunic over his head as sets it aside and peels off his leggings and lies back in the soft verdant growth to soak up the sunshine and have a nap. He wasn't afraid of being seen, nor afraid of much at all. It just never occurred to him. He was a Kender, after all, living carefree and fearless and living for new experiences and the love of friends and a good life.

Tasslehoff lay in the meadow in only his underclothes and dozed in the warm sunshine. The young Kender, lost in his repose, suddenly bolted awake at the haunting shrieking sound echoing from beyond the forest edge. The lad jumped up and hurried to dress. His tunic settled over his narrow but chiseled torso as he slid his leggings up. He hurriedly pulled on his short soft boots while simultaneously trying to hang his pouches and bags around his waist and over his shoulders, and succeeding in only getting himself tied in a knot. Finally sorting himself out, he snatches up his hoopak staff and rushes toward the direction of the noise. The signature weapon of a Kender, the hoopak is a short staff with a spike at the bottom and a fork at the top holding at sling pouch which they utilize with irritating accuracy. When in danger, they swing the staff about their head and it makes an oddly haunting sound… the very sound Tas had heard. All Kender knew it well, but anyone in Ansalon knew it, for Kender feared nothing and if they called for help then matters were dire indeed. Not just answering the call for help (Tas was quite the hero, just ask him) he also didn't want to miss a new adventure.

Tas sprinted across the meadow in long (for a Kender) graceful strides that ate up the distance to the forest edge swiftly as his jaunty topknot bounced along behind him trying to keep up. Few run as fast or as agile as a Kender, for long experience dodging bailiffs and constables keeps their skills honed; as they have the unfortunate habit of "finding" and "acquiring" things that did not originally belong to them.

The famed Kender hero dove into the forest, leaping fallen logs and dodging or ducking branches, as he hears the shriek of a hoopak once again, much closer now. Yet Tasslehoff Burrfoot was a very unusual Kender. His experiences with the rest of the Heroes of the Lance during the recently ended war had the effect that he did take some few things seriously. Love and friendship was innate to all his race, but the loss of two very dear to him made him appreciate it all the more; and his time fighting draconians alongside the group of heroic friends had taught him how to quickly assess a situation and find a way to fit into the battle in true Kender fashion.

Breaking through the tree line into a small clearing, Tas instantly took in the scene of a lone Kender warrior surrounded by goblins. There had been more, but apparently three had decided to take a very long nap. Tas took his hoopak in his left hand and launched himself at the nearest enemy to him and drew Rabbitslayer from his belt and swiftly stuck it in the neck of a goblin. That one suddenly decided on a long nap too. Caramon had said that knife would only be good for slaying rabbits. Tas proved him wrong yet again, but the name had stuck. He wasn't really sure it was the same knife (anything a Kender manages to keep for three weeks is considered a family heirloom) but it was THE Rabbitslayer as far as he was concerned. Without slowing or misplacing a step, he stuck his hoopak between the ankles of another goblin tripping it and it pitched over on his face with a grunt and a snarl.

Tas made his way to the other hoopak calling for help, and the handsome Kender warrior that happened to be attached to it; and boy was he tall (he had to be at least four feet). The two were still quite outnumbered, so Tas resorted to a Kender's secret weapon… insults. The diminutive kleptomaniacs have the innate ability to taunt and insult anyone into a distracting rage, making them ridiculously incompetent. Tas took a deep breath and let fly.

"Hey can those fleas on your body do tricks?"

The goblin paused for a moment as his eyes dilated and his right hand began to shake in rage slightly. That was all the distraction the other Kender needed and he drove the steel-capped pointy bottom end of his hoopak into the goblin. He joined the slumber party too. It worked!

"Hey! Is that your face or did your neck get sick?"

But this time it didn't have the effect Tas had hoped. His voice drifted away as he heard the sibilant spidery words of magic. He then notices a draconian, one of those magicky ones, at the edge of the clearing. Tas had heard Raistlin chant similar words just before something "interesting" happened. With uncommon clarity and quick-thinking, Tas drops the end of his hoopak to the ground and deftly kicks a stone right into the sling pouch. With a spin (Caramon might have teasingly called it a twirl) and a flick of his wrists he launched the stone expertly and it impacted heavily into the side of the dragon-man-like creature with a wet smack of bone. Tas really did not like these guys. They were no fun. Too serious all the time.

"Uh oh…" Tas just remembered at the last second that these un-fun, too-serious lizardy-dragony things tend to explode when they die, but just the magicky ones. The playful and fun-loving Kender suddenly realized that getting blowed up might not be so much fun. He dropped his hoopak and dove into the taller Kender and tackled him to the ground, just at the draconian corpse exploded, taking out several more goblins with him. The goblins, only finding courage in numbers, suddenly found that they had run out of it. There were only three left, but thought better of bothering these slender little fighters any further.

The two Kender are a tangle of limbs, pouches, and topknots. Tas blinks away the stars in his eyes from the explosion and looks down on the other one under him and recognition dawns. He had sparkly blue eyes and silver hair that shined like a minnow and a beautiful smile.

"Hey! You're Kronin, aren't you?"

"I am, or at least I was the last time I checked. The bounty posted in Flotsam says that's my name anyway." Suddenly wondering if he had gotten his name wrong his whole life.

Kronin Thistleknot was a hero to all Kender. He had killed the nasty hobgoblin Fewmaster Toede during the war and was also their leader… or at least as much of a leader as Kender society has. He was respected, adored, and was quite the looker… and lying on his back under Tas. The stars that were flitting about in his eyes suddenly returned, along with a huge flight butterflies in his stomach, or given the severity of his condition maybe it was a flight of butterfly-sized silver dragons in tummy. Tas rolled off of Kronin and dropped his little blue-clad butt right onto the ground, never taking his eyes off the taller Kender.

Kronin sits up and brushes a few leaves and twigs off his clothes and out of his topknot.

"You saved my life! I guess that makes us friends now, doesn't it?" Kronin asked a star-struck Tasslehoff.

"Uhhh… yeah! I suppose it does. I'm Tasslehoff Burrfoot." And Tas reaches out and shakes Kronin's hand.

"I'm suddenly feeling kinda weird." Tas says innocently. His eyes are having a hard time focusing, his head is swimming, and the itty-bitty dragons in his stomach were making quite a racket; and he was feeling flushed and the heat rose to the tips of his pointy little ears. Kronin looks Tas over for injuries and finds only a small cut on his left thigh. Bummer. Those were Tas's favorite blue leggings. The cut was barely more than a scratch really… but Tas was able to hide behind it.

"You don't think its poisoned do you? Goblins sometimes poison their blades." Kronin reasoned.

"Maybe. I don't know." Tas answers, not having decided if it was poison or… something else.

"Well, let's get you fixed up. But not here. It kinda smells here."

Kronin pulls Tas to his feet and takes him by the arm and walks him through the woods and right back to the meadow that Tas had come from. As they walked through the short length of forest, Tas was paying more attention to the feel of the hand on his arm than he was where he was putting his feet, and his toe snagged a root and he stumbled and would have fallen if not for Kronin hand on his wrist, almost holding his hand.

"You must be sicker than I thought. Here, hold still." And the taller Kender reached down and wrapped his arm behind Tas's knees and "whooshed" him right up into his arms. Tas failed to intercept the squeak that suddenly escaped from between his teeth, and he wrapped his arms around Kronin's neck as he carried his the rest of the way to the meadow. The itty-bitty silver dragons making his tummy go topsy-turvy were then suddenly joined by a small army of tiny Minotaurs that seemed to be banging on their war drums in his chest as his heart thumped all the way into his ears.

Kronin laid Tas onto the soft clover and he pulled his bags and pouches off as Tas wiggled his way out from under the shoulder straps and belts of his own many bags and pouches. Without saying a word, and a look of concern in his blue eyes, Kronin began to carefully examine the small wound on Tas's thigh. He took hold of the cut in the blue leggings and his slender pilfering fingers ripped the leggings all the way to the top, exposing the length of Tasslehoff's slim smooth thigh as well as a little more.

"Oops! Too much. Sorry." Kronin didn't mean to tear it apart like that, but didn't want to embarrass Tas by asking him to take them off. Besides, they were ruined by the cut anyway.

This time Tas did indeed manage to stop the other squeak from escaping, but it still waited there for the next chance. But he knew he was in trouble when his body tensed up and beads of sweat started to form on his forehead.

"Looks like poison, all right. You're getting all tense and turning red." And Kronin leaned down to suck the "poison" out of the wound. Tas knew that was how it was done. He was bitten by a snake when he was little and though he didn't know if it was one of the bad snakes, his Uncle Trapspringer took no chances and did the same thing to make sure there was no poison. But this wasn't the same… Kronin was sucking out any poison… if Tas wasn't sure he was dying, which he was certain would be quite an interesting adventure, he would swear his was kissing a "boo-boo."

There it was… Tas was distracted by the devestatingly cute Kender hero's lips on his thigh, and the errant squeak found its way out.

"Well, it looks like this calls for magic medicine." Kronin says as starts digging through his myriad pouches scattering his little treasures about until he finds a small tin. He brightens with a big smile and holds up his discovery.

"Here it is. Magic ointment. It's amazing what clerics leave laying around. I kept meaning to return it to him, but forgot." Kronin opened the tin and took a bit of the smooth ointment and began to lightly rub Tasslehoff's 'poisoned wound' (a small scratch really) and a very broad area around it. The poison must be pretty bad to need a cleric's healing salve over that much of Tasslehoff's thigh. The butterfly silver dragons in Tas' tummy and Minotaur drums in his chest were now joined by a Gnomish steam contraption in his head. Tas nibbled on his bottom lip, which now sat guard duty between his teeth to ensure no further squeaks managed to sneak out. But as Kronin's slender fingers smooth the salve over his leg, they drifted their way all by themselves along the inside of Tas's inner thigh.

"Is that better? The magic should be working any moment now. Fizban's clerics really know their business, you know."

Tas's bottom lip had been sitting guard duty for another squeak, but was no match for a good old-fashioned moan. The dragons and Minotaurs and Gnomes were really having a hey-day now. Kronin digs about in his pouches again and pulls out a small strip of cloth to wrap the wound in, and then pulls open his largest bag that he kept his travelling cloak in for cooler days and spread it out on the clover and pulls Tas over onto it. Kronin quietly leans forward and quick as a squirrel plants a kiss on Tas's cheek and runs off to the forest edge.

Tas had a moment to himself to try to get his head together, if he could get that infernal Gnome machine to calm down. It had really built a head of steam with the kiss.

"Just what do you think you are doing?" He asks looking down at his ruined leggings and hoping Kronin hadn't noticed that his 'Kender-hood' had acquired a mind of its own. But as short as his tunic was how could he not? But as he was arguing with himself Kronin returned and Tas quickly yanked his tunic down as far as he could to hide his condition. The silver-haired Kender hero sat down on his cloak next to Tas with a big Vallenwood leaf in his hand with a pile of wild raspberries and mint on it; and wrapped a berry in a mint leaf and put it between Tas's lips.

"Here elves eat this sort of stuff and they never get sick." Kronin says, and Tas bites down and lets the juices of berry and bright mint fill his mouth. Tasslehoff was loving, cheerful, fun, courageous, and mischievous, but he wasn't an idiot by any stretch of imagination. So, he decided to stop arguing with the rest of his body.

"I'm kinda thirsty, poison does that you know. My waterskin is over there beside you." Tas says motioning to the other side of their cloak-blanket. Kronin grins from ear to ear remembering something he thinks he has in one of his bags and rummages around and with a look of pure delight snatches up a bottle of Elvish wine from Qualinesti. Its marked as being from Solostaran's private stock, but right now Tas couldn't care less. Kronin doesn't have any cups, so he just uncorks the bottle and passes it over to Tas.

"This might taste better, you know. I found this lying about when I was visiting the Speaker of the Sun. You would think he would keep better track of such nice stuff. I was keeping safe for him, but maybe he won't miss this one."

While Tas took a sip of the sweet wine that blended perfectly with the taste of mint and berry, Kronin pulled up Tas's tunic so he could open the bandage and examine Tas's wound. He pulled the tunic higher than he needed, especially since Tas's leggings were all but stockings now, and declared:

"See! I told you it was magic ointment. It's much better!"

"Yes, much." Tas responded and didn't even try to hide his rising Kenderhood this time. He lived for adventure… and he was looking forward to this one… a lot. He reached over to his own pouches and dug around them tossing things about until he found what he wanted. With a grin of discovery he pulls cloth away from a large piece of fine Solamnic cheese and hands it to his hero.

The two Kender warriors share a sunny afternoon picnic of wild berries, cheese, and elvish wine. This was one of the rare days in Solace where the daytime sun was perfectly warm and nights were delightfully cool. Tas, maybe emboldened by the wine, felt the sun's warmth and peeled off his tunic and tossed it carelessly aside. Uncle Trapspringer had always told him if you are going to swim in cold water that it's better to just dive in.

Kronin feels the sultry sun as well as Tas and pulls his own tunic over his head and rolls it up and lays it down and gently lays Tas's head down on it as a pillow. Tas is about as exposed as he's ever been and about as eager too. Kronin has a slim and firm magnificent body and Tas refuses to resist the urge to touch him; and his finger runs its way down the middle of his slim chest and between the tight muscles of his abdomen. Pausing at the bottom of his abs, Tas's finger hooks the waistband of Kronin's leggings as he gives him a shy look. With a bright smile, Kronin lets Tas help him out of his pants; and apparently Tas isn't the only one with 'Kenderhood' problems.

"You're very cute, you know that? And brave too." Kronin says to Tas. Then, just to be sure that his patient is getting better, he checks Tas's wound once more and kisses the boo-boo… and proceeds to kiss a little more… elsewhere.

The itty-bitty dragons, Minotaur drums, and gnomish steam engines didn't go away for quite a while, but at least they did find a rhythm with the giggles and squeaks… and darn it… all those little pesky squeaks finally managed to escape… and one really big squeak eventually.

XXXXXXXXXX

Caramon and Tika Majere keep themselves mightily busy managing the Inn of the Last Home in Solace. It is a labor of love and allows them to share their love with the people of their beloved town. Being a crossroads between nations, the old friends that travelled and fought together during the war often find occasion to visit. But in the late afternoon when the Inn would be mostly empty they would leave the place in Dezra's hands and take a few moments for themselves and often go for a stroll in the meadow beyond the Vallenwoods hand in hand.

As they walked through the clover, Caramon happened to notice what looked like two bodies lying in the clover. The ever noble man that Caramon was, he suddenly wished he had a sword, but he always had a long dagger in his belt that he carried for utilitarian purposes. He drew his dagger and as quietly as the big warrior turned inn-keeper could , he stepped towards the still forms… and then his eyes grew wide in surprise and delight. Tika his wife was a warrior in her own right and was only a step away from her husband when she heard his quietly laughing voice:

"Dear Paladine… Tas? Really?" He says softly as he looked down with a smile and saw Tasslehoff Burrfoot, his bright and cheerful adventuring companion, and dear friend of his heart, completely naked with his head resting on the chest of another fine example of Kender beauty with his leg lying across his waist, but oblivious and innocent in their slumber under the waning sun; and all the little treasures that Kender collect scattered around them. Of the friends who had made it through the trials of the War of the Lance, Tas was the only one who hadn't found love. It's not as though he wasn't full of love himself, but he never thought to even miss THAT sort of love. But now he had found it… or rather it found him.

"Caramon Majere!" Tika very quietly chides her husband. "You turn around right now." And as the kind warrior turns his back with a happy grin on his face, Tika pulls Caramon's cloak off his shoulders and lays it across the two small Kender wrapped in each other's arms in the meadow fast asleep. Returning to the Inn hand in hand, and a ridiculous smile on both their faces, Caramon and Tika get back to their work of serving the travelers and residents of Solace, but not before asking Dezra to rush off and prepare their best room for Tas and his new friend.

XXXXXXXXXX

Days later finds Tas awake early with the contents of his pouches scattered across a table of the common room of the Inn of the Last Home. Kronin had left the day before and Tas was already feeling a little lonely. Caramon and Tika themselves were still wondering what they would find missing with the two light-fingered Kender having stayed at the Inn for three days. Tas half-heartedly sorted through his possessions, and his prized collection of maps. He examined each map, looking for his next adventure, rolling up each one and putting it away in a pouch as he finished, finding little to his liking… until he unrolled the last and a large sprig of wild mint falls out and on the map in writing that is not his own (and rather tidy, for a Kender) is marked an "X" and a heart.

Tas's sudden grin reaches from short boots to his topknot and he starts cramming everything back into his many bags and pouches. He pauses as he looks at the small tin he picks up among his other possessions. Seeing the labelling, his suspicion is confirmed. The label says "Palanthian Hand Cream." His tiny wound was never poisoned, which he knew, but now he knows that Kronin knew it too. He jumps up and adjusts his brand new green leggings, a gift from his new lover, and is about to bolt for the door, but not before he is intercepted by Tika and Caramon. Caramon hugs on his smaller friend, wiping a tear away from his eyes, and places a new and well-made dagger in Tas's belt... a new "Rabbitslayer." Tika is already cramming sweet bread and jerky in Tas's bags. With happy tears misting her eyes she tells Tas: "You come back when you can… both of you." With a last comment of male camaraderie, Caramon tells him: "Go get him tiger."

With a light heart and swift feet Tas sets off into the east. It was a long road, but Kronin had only a one day head start, but there was no telling how distracted two Kender would get before they found their way home.

Just as the front door of the Inn of the Last Home closed behind Tas, Caramon was reminded of something Elistan, High Cleric of Paladine, had said.

"**There are those who walk in shadow; and those who walk in light; but Kender carry their own light with them wherever they go."**


End file.
